Building a Business Case for the Need to Improve Employee Wellbeing and Mental Health

With employees across Asia experience rising levels of stress, anxiety and burnout,¹ organisations increasingly recognise the importance of investing in employees’ mental health. Wellbeing initiatives such as employee assistance programs (EAPs) are no longer viewed simply as an employee perk that goes beyond the basic offerings of paid leave and health insurance, but as a strategic imperative. 

Yet, it can be difficult getting the green light for new investments. Common reasons why human resources (HR) teams fail to get buy in for employee mental health support initiatives include:

• The proposed wellbeing initiatives are not aligned with organisational goals.
• The leadership is resistant to change.
• The metrics outlined in the proposal are poorly defined.

To introduce an EAP into your company, you may have to prepare a strong business case for employee wellbeing, to help decision makers better understand the value that your proposed EAP solution can bring to the organisation. To overcome the barriers outlined above, you need to:

• Align employee wellbeing initiatives with the business strategy. Understand the current goals and priorities for your organisation, and frame your EAP business case and discussions in similar terms. 
• Highlight the impact of employee wellbeing on your company’s bottomline, supporting your business case with internal HR data, as well as statistics from external sources.
• Demonstrate value through success stories and external expertise. If you’ve already made progress towards your organisation’s wellbeing goals, it is important to highlight this early on by sharing employee testimonials and success stories. Leveraging external expertise—such as using case studies from EAP providers—can also demonstrate the value of your wellbeing initiative, and increase your odds of securing buy-in from the leadership. 
  
  

What You Need to Include in Your Business Case for an Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

If you aren’t yet familiar with the steps to setting up an employee assistance programme, we recommend reading our previous article on launching an EAP

We touched on the essentials of EAP—including how it works, its benefits, a step-by-step guide to launching an EAP, and post-launch tips for increasing EAP utilisation. 

With the fundamentals covered, your next step is crafting your EAP business case. This should be a well-researched presentation of the benefits, costs and expected outcomes of introducing an EAP into your organisation. Here are key elements you need to include:

Why Your Organisation Needs An EAP

The first step to building your EAP business case is to document the reasons why your organisation requires and should invest in the EAP. Start by reviewing your existing employee wellbeing initiatives and strategies, and examine your reasons for implementing a new EAP. These could include increased absenteeism, more staff taking time off work due to mental health issues, or high staff turnover.

A starting point might be that the needs of your workforce have evolved, and your existing employee wellness initiatives fail to meet these changes. In this case, you need to highlight areas that your current wellbeing initiatives are lacking in, and how your proposed EAP can fill in the gaps.

Goals and Objectives

The next step is to outline the goals and objectives for your EAP: increase employee productivity, reduce absenteeism and presenteeism, and so on. Each of your goals should be relevant to your organisation’s problems and tied to a specific metric or objective that you can use to measure the success of your programme. 

Benefits of Implementing the EAP

This section outlines the intended value of implementing your EAP, and how it can benefit stakeholders across the organisation as well as the organisation itself. Be as precise as you can when communicating the benefits, through sharing examples of how the EAP can help employers or employees navigate specific mental health challenges or support them through a mental health condition. 

Wherever relevant, use data from external research and studies to support your proposal. For example, if you’re planning to implement an EAP that offers counselling sessions for employees’ mental health issues it can help to include supporting studies that show the impact of mental health counselling on key workplace metrics.

Cost Projections And ROI

This section covers key financial information, such as the ROI, and the full potential costs that your organisation may incur if it fails to take action to invest in employee mental health support. The latter can be calculated by using the average costs of absenteeism, presenteeism, turnover and lost productivity at your organisation. 

You should also include your cost projections for the proposed EAP, plus other alternative solutions outlined in your business case. For each of these options, your total cost projection should account for all the cost factors involved. This includes the costs of starting and setting up the EAP, maintaining the programme, training and supporting employees in using the programme, and implementing any potential upgrades or extra features. 

How You'll Implement the EAP

Outline the details of how you’ll implement the EAP—starting from the programme rollout, to your plan for promoting the EAP, and how stakeholders and employees will be trained or supported to utilise the various EAP services.

For each stage of the process, you need to include a timeline, along with the list of key personnel involved in carrying out the plan. 

It also helps to pinpoint areas where your EAP provider can assist with your programme rollout. For instance, ThoughtFull works closely with employers and HR teams beyond the EAP launch. We’re involved throughout the EAP implementation process, and support organisations with employee engagement, communication, marketing and performing regular organisation mental health pulse checks. 

How You’ll Evaluate the EAP

Every business case should include an evaluation and monitoring strategy. To demonstrate how you’ll measure the impact of your EAP, you need to provide an overview of the metrics and data you’ll be monitoring.

Examples of metrics you need to track include EAP utilisation, employee satisfaction, employee turnover rates, retention rates and absenteeism rates. Beyond tracking quantitative metrics, you need to outline the types of qualitative data you’ll monitor—such as employee feedback—and how you’ll obtain these insights. 

Alternative Options

In the final section of your EAP business case, you’ll outline alternative options to your proposed solution. 

To provide decision makers with a complete overview of all the alternatives you’ve considered, you need to indicate the advantages, downsides and costs for each option. Include your proposed EAP in the comparison, and explain why it is a more effective solution compared to the other alternatives. 

Tips on Building a Compelling EAP Business Case

Test It Out Through a Pilot Programme or Small-Scale Launch

Implementing a pilot programme or a small-scale launch can help you demonstrate the effectiveness of your EAP. Take Shell as an example—the organisation implemented a successful 18-month pilot, before it went ahead with rolling out a five-year employee wellbeing programme.²

Pilot programmes also provide an opportunity for you to gather feedback, and resolve any issues that may arise before you proceed with a full-scale launch. 

Time It Right

Time your proposal around periods where your company is receptive to implementing new initiatives. 

For large organisations, this could be during periods of internal funding, where new initiatives or proposals are reviewed. Aligning your proposal with upcoming strategic changes can also increase your odds of getting your EAP business case approved.  

Nurture Relationships Well in Advance

Strengthening relationships is a continuous effort, not a one-off attempt. Make a point to get to know employees across all levels and functions in your day-to-day work. In this way, you’ll better understand their needs, and gain insights into how your organisation functions from their viewpoint. 

Remember to plan ahead, and gather input from decision makers before you deliver your presentation. This helps you identify areas in your EAP business case that you need to clarify, or provide additional information in order to garner support.

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¹ Aon and Telus Health, Asia Mental Health Index Report, 2023
² Shell, Employee health and wellbeing, 2024